Watering the Plants

Answering the Door

Photo by Erica Marsland Huynh on Unsplash

The bacon mac and cheese from Keller’s arrived tepid.

Tom Stoughton slid his fork onto the table, too far, it almost slid off the other side.

Evelyn would be disappointed in the tiny display of temper.

He picked up the container of food, was gonna nuke it, set it down, went to the fridge, grabbed a stout instead.

The doorbell rang. It startled him. Thought about not answering, but that would bug him too.

In the foyer, one of Evelyn’s neighborhood beautification awards was crooked.

He knew he had slammed a door or a drawer, knocked it off kilter somehow, sometime.

Tom stopped and looked at the blanket of snow on the side yard, the yard the reason they had bought the house in the first place.

“Aaahh,” he said to the empty house, like an aging pirate.

He straightened the plaque and opened the door gently.

A small blonde girl in a white knit hat that was almost invisible in the drifts of snow behind her.

She was a Dobler girl, he knew that, but he’d never get her name. 

Susanna?

Savannah?

It was an S, Tom was sure of it.

“Hi, Mr. Stoughton, I don’t know if you remember me. I’m Colleen Dobler. We live on Acacia. My mom was in your wife’s garden club.”

Tom held back the angry-at-himself-grunt for getting even the girl’s initial wrong.

The girl blushed. “I mean, my mom’s still in the club, but umm…”

Tom wanted to say: Yes, I get it, my wife’s dead so she’s not in the club anymore.

What he said instead was:“I understand, honey. What’s the reason for the visit?”

The girl produced a canister of money from somewhere. Behind her back?

The canister had a face on it, a photo taped to it.

“We’re doing a Go Fund Me for Patrick Wilker.”

The girl blushed so deeply it looked like the brim of her knit cap was red.

“He’s kind of my boyfriend. Umm…anyway. He got hit by a car when him and his friends were playing street hockey…and…and..”

The little girl shook her head like bees were crawling on it.

“They said he might lose his leg. My mom said you don’t really like social media, so she said it would be ok to come over. Pat used to bag her groceries at FarmFresh.”

The little girl’s lip trembled.

“This is the money we collected so far at my Dad’s muffler shop.”

Tom nodded and patted his wallet. As he went to pull he realized: He gave the last of his cash to the delivery driver before he discovered his food was lukewarm.

“I have no cash on me young lady. None. I’m sorry. “

The little girl smiled and held the canister up.

“Just scan the code with your phone, Mr. Stoughton, and it will take you right to the-”

“Aaah, I don’t know how to do any of that crap…stuff.”

Colleen hung her head briefly and then looked up.

“Thanks, anyway, Mr. Stoughton.” She turned and walked off the porch.

Tom thought, after the door was closed, he could drop by Muffler Pro tomorrow and give Dobler some money. But the little girl, who was not an S, was gonna think he was just some scroogey old man with a sweet dead wife.

He sat down with his now completely cold food, retrieved the fork and took a bite.

Evelyn’s tablet was still propped near the air fryer. She was on social media for gardening and recipe sharing and a bunch of stuff.

He stood and picked up the tablet with the little ladybug sticker, sitting down and scrolling , clicking icons. Everything wanted passwords he didn’t know.

Tom finished his stout, got another.

He grumbled, started disliking himself. He didn’t know how to do anything Evelyn knew how to do.

That garden was going to be garbage by June.

Tom raised his glass to his lips. Still had the remnants of a nasty scar on his thumb from where Billy Gorman slashed him playing hockey when he was a kid.

Remembered Billy, and Stan, and Kuber and… pulling the nets aside when cars came.

After another chug of stout, he pulled the tablet back to him.

Google didn’t need a password.

Tom opened it up and typed in How to Make a Backyard Hockey Rink.

Gonna destroy the garden one way or another, might as well do it for a reason.

***